Teacher’s Notes
on Imaginative Writing: The Elements of Craft, by Janet Burroway
by
Geraldine Cannon Becker

Following you will find some areas of the text I would highlight as being important--worthy of more attention and thought. I will also include thoughts or questions on the content. Perhaps you have similar notes we could share in class.

Chapter 1: Image
        “An image appeals to the senses” (4). Senses of whom?
Purpose and audience need consideration
        “[S]how, don’t tell...” use “concrete, significant details” (7).
Concrete and significant to or for whom? Purpose and audience need consideration.

Logos, Pathos, Ethos (From notes I use in my composition classes)
Logos: How can I best present my message so that it is internally consistent and logical?
What is the form or structure that would best suit my purpose?
Purpose and Audience analysis might be called for here.

Pathos: How can I best appeal to my reader’s values and beliefs? How can I engage my reader emotionally and imaginatively? How can I make the reader open to my message?
Images/appeals to the senses are great for this.

Ethos: How can I present myself effectively? How can I enhance my credibility and trustworthiness or the credibility and trustworthiness of my speaker/narrator (the conveyor of my ideas)? This is aided by demonstrations of knowledge, fairness and building a bridge to the audience through form/structure, images/appeals to senses, etc.

Logos, Pathos, and Ethos are interconnected in the communication of ideas.

R.E.N.N.S. can help you communicate ideas more effectively.

R. Reasons: Help you build your point, giving your main idea a frame of support.
E. Examples: Help your reader see what you are talking about more clearly.                          
        Comparisons would work here if examples are not available/forthcoming.
N. Names: Help you be more specific (Who was there?), lend authority (authority figures         
        in the area of your focus that you could mention) to your content, and help you         
        demonstrate knowledge.
N. Numbers: Help you be more specific (How many people were there?), lend authority         
        (statistics/figures in the area of your focus that you could mention) to your         
        content, and help you demonstrate knowledge.
S. Senses: Help you build a bridge to the reader by making connections using appeals to         
        any of the five(touch, taste, sight, smell, sound) or six(intuition/gut feeling) senses.

Examine Metaphor and Simile carefully (pages 11-13).
Try to avoid cliché: “comparisons that have lost their freshness” (11).

Try to “Make it New,” as Ezra Pound said, to yourself and to others...to “illuminate the everyday and make the familiar strange” (13).
Why should we do this? For others to ponder, speculate upon/about, to make the strange familiar everyday by our illumination... Why?

The top of page fourteen gives you some instructions on how to read the sample works provided for you in our book.
I have a handout I will bring to class on “How to Read Short Fiction.”
This handout is also on my website for your examination.
I agree with JB that you should read each selection more than once.
Before you read think about what the title says to you.
What do you think this work will be about? While you read and after, are you let down?
Are you amazed? Surprised?
Did you expect this? Why or why not?
What did you like best about this work? What did you like least? Why?
What techniques or tools might you use in your own future work? Why?
Which work (if you read several) did you like best? why?

Notes of your own: